


Says the Snake.

by Bakuras



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 23:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5559335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bakuras/pseuds/Bakuras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pull you describe - the magnetism of the light and the simultaneous repulsion of the dark, comes not in the form of a tug on whatever is left of your rotten heart, but a natural reaction to the chokechain that only has any give when you stumble in the direction of its tension.  It’s not what you want.  Light is not what you want.  It’s not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Says the Snake.

There’s word that a thin, red thread connects you to those you are meant to follow, those you are meant to love, meant to stand beside.  You feel it, _physically_ , and you aren’t sure if it’s your sensitivity to things of that nature or if it’s an illusion caused by your collar being pulled too tight.  Regardless, it’s _there_ , and it sits not around your finger, but around your neck, heavy and thick like a woven noose.  

The harder you strain against it, the harder it is to breathe.  You do so anyway.

It’s so tight now that you hear your own pulse throbbing in your ears.

The pull you describe - the magnetism of the light and the simultaneous repulsion of the dark, comes not in the form of a _tug_ on whatever is left of your rotten heart, but a natural reaction to the chokechain that only has any give when you stumble in the direction of its tension.  It’s not what you want.  Light is not what you want.  It’s _**not**_.

_**It’s not it’s not it’s not it’s NOT.** _

The light is what _**Ben**_ wanted.  Not you.   _You_ took his skeleton and rotted him down to nothing more than empty muscle and blood with no heart to move it.   _You_ ripped the already deadened tongue from his mouth and replaced it with your own, with something worthwhile.  The rope tightened around _his_ neck before it ever did yours, and the only reason you even have to bear the burden of it is because you share his skin.

...And _yet_.

 _Yet_ , it’s _his_ boots that halt in their place in the middle of the thin metal bridge, and it’s _his_ hands that slightly tremble as they hold out your weapon, jagged and clunky and under constant threat of completely falling apart.  It’s _not_ his voice, though, that speaks to his father.  That’s all you.  

It’s all you, and you know it, because if it was _him_ , it would be dismissible.  You can overlook shaking hands and hesitant feet.  It’s pre-programming, it’s muscle memory.  It isn’t _genuine doubt in your own insincerity._

The truth is, you don’t _know_ whether it’s a trick or not.  The war between _Kylo Ren_ and _Ben Solo_ is raged on their own tongue, and you can’t tell whether the words pouring from your own poisoned, dripping, rotting mouth are spoken as a lure - a bulb on the head of a deep-ocean predator, or if they are the only real truth you have spoken in nearly twenty five years.  

They cannot be both.  

They cannot be neither.  

And they cannot be anywhere in between.

_Come closer, father.  Heal me.  Love me._

_Says the child, or says the snake?_

...

A victor is called when the sun bleeds dry.  

When the light cuts your father through the middle, it moves in him without resistance. 


End file.
